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  • Over a decade ago I worked as a freelancer for an Investment Bank (the largest one that went bankrupt in the 2008 Crash, which was a few years later) were the head of the Proprietary Trading Desk (the team of Traders who invest for the profit of the bank) asked me if I could change the software so that they could see the investments of the Client Trading Desk (who invest for clients with client money) was making, with the assent of the latter team.

    Now if the guys investing money for the bank know what they guys investing customer money are doing they can do things like Front-Run the customer trades (or serve them at exactly the right price to barelly beat the competiotion) thus making more profits for the bank and hence get bigger bonuses. This is why Financial regulations say that there is supposed to be so-called Chinese Walls between the proprietary trading and the customer trading activities: they're supposed to be segregated and not visible to each other.

    Note that the heads of both teams were mates and already regularly had chats, so they might already have been exchanging this info informally.

    I was quite fresh in there (less than 1 year) and the software system I worked in at the time was used by both teams, but when I started looking into it I saw that the separation was very explicitly coded in software and that got me thinking about what I had learned from the mandatory compliance training I had done when I first joined (so, yeah, that stuff is not totally useless!!!)

    So I asked for written confirmation from the heads of both teams, and just got some vague response e-mails, no clear "do such and such".

    So I played the fool and took it to a seperate team called Compliance (responsible for compliance with financial regulations) saying I just wanted to make sure it was all prim and proper, "just in case".

    Of course, it kinda blew up (locally) and I ended up called to a meeting with the heads of the Prop Desk and whatnot - all stern looks and barelly contained angry tones - were I kept playing the fool.

    Ultimatelly it ended up not being a problem for me at all, to the point that after that bank went bust and its component parts were sold to another bank, the technical team manager asked me to come back to work with the same IT group (remember, I was a freelancer) with even greater responsabilities, so this didn't exactly damage my career.

    That said, over the years there were various cases of IT guys in large investment banks who went along with "innocent" requests from the Traders and ended up as the fall-guys for subsequent breaking of Finance Regulations, serving jail time, so had I gone along with that request I would've actually risked ending up in jail.

    (Financial Regulators were and are a complete total joke when it comes to large banks, which actually makes it more likely that some poor techie guy will be made the fall guy to protected the bank and its heads).

  • I worked with people from many indian IT companies who just outright clone github repos and tell clients they developed the entire thing from scratch.

  • Yes, in the mid 1990s, large banks in the USA were being electronically compromised so often that they wouldn’t investigate or pursue a loss if it was under $50k.

  • I work in pest control and 99% of the shit we use. You can buy without having a license. The license just covers us to use the products on other people's houses responsibly. If you really want to do pest control, you only need a few chemicals and they are all easily obtainable on Amazon.

  • I worked for a pretty popular magazine back in the late 90's. One day near the beginning/middle of 2000, we were all called down to the bullpen for a last minute meeting by management and marketing. (That's never a good sign.)

    We were told that we have a great product with amazing writing, but marketing doesn't know how to sell it so they're closing us down. Instead, we went online only. I was the web developer so I survived the firings.

    So then we figured that we were set because our website produced more content and had more traffic than any of the company's other websites. However, in March of 2001, we had another emergency meeting. Again, we were told our content was great, but the company was going in another direction. Instead of producing our own content, the company was going to just repost other sites' content. I and everyone else in my team were let go.

    Needless to say, the whole "we'll just repost what other people posted" plan didn't go so well. Last time I checked, the company wasn't doing very well at all.

  • Worked support for an electricity supplier. I was able to see a frightening amount of info about the customers. Even past ones who had moved elsewhere.

    We also kept notes about each call, email, web or app chat. So if you were an asshole in the past, everyone will know going forward.

    Also fuck landlords and landladies etc. More often than not, they were shitty to deal with.

    Also we would often use Google Maps and Streetview to see what your house looked like. We also had pictures of the inside because the installation techs took pictures to confirm that works were completed as specified.

    Alll of this was available to us for any reason, at any time with no oversight. And none of it was encrypted. There was also government websites in use up to 2020 that required internet explorer to use and had passwords as trivial as 'Password1'.

    I left that job because the pay was lousy and the stress was pretty full on. I respected a lot of people that worked there. Both higher ups and people who came after me. But fuck was there a lot of potential for bad actors or like stalkers etc to mess with your info.

    I would reccomend to everyone. Please use password managers. Especially decent open source ones like Bitwarden. Take note of every piece of info that you give a company. From your phone number, address, email etc to even when you contacted them. Also try to not have your home look like an abandoned hovel on Streetview lol. Easier said than done I know. But it may affect your dealings with support people that you need help from. And lastly, please dont use Password1 as a login. Ever. Like please.

  • The majority of tech startups are super chaotic and barely keeping things running. More than you would ever imagine.

  • We didn't investigate an online theft from any bank account unless it was over US $100k.

  • Battersea Dogs Homes senior dog carers are employed based on their PR experience and not at all on their experience at looking after dogs

  • The dealership I worked for gave out loans they knew people couldn’t afford, ignored safety items, slapped inspection stickers that didn’t match vehicles to get them on the lot. Ran a lift that was jerry rigged because the wiring busted along with the hydraulic tank.

    Employee bought a vehicle and his manager watched where he went on his lunch (via GPS installed by said company into sold vehicles). Funnily enough it was to an interview.

    Oh another one. School bus company 1 is one of the largest in the US. In between runs a buddies transmission starts leaking on his bus. He calls the terminal on my phone to let them know.

    “Keep driving keep it going, we are not sending out another bus to you.”

    Transmission in a 45ft flat nose busts fully in the middle of one of the busiest intersections in the town. He calls over radio letting them know it busted as he told them.

    “What do you mean this is first time I’m hearing about this”

    Flat nose I drove kept writing up for not having heat and turning it into the people I was told. This went for an entire winter and I didn’t have heat until after the thaw and spring started. Mechanic never knew that bus had been being written up. They were hiding slips. Same bus, folding door let go and was flapping in the wind with a bus full of students. Over the radio they said to keep driving and refused to send a replacement.

301 comments